They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To...

It's so beyond cliche at this point. You hear it all the time. "The past was better than the present." From cars, to politics, to life in general, it seems like an awful lot of people seem nostalgic for "the good old days", whatever that means to the particular person complaining about... well, whatever they're complaining about. Now, it's tempting to blame this on aging Boomers who long for the days when they had more hair, less gut, and the ability to partake in pastimes more strenuous than sipping coffee on a bench at the local Walmart, but glorifying the past doesn't seem to be confined to any one particular generation. Everyone does it, to some extent. Hell, there are times I think back to how great it would be to live in the summer of '98 one more time.

Honestly though, the truth is probably somewhere in between. Here's an example. People hate the most recent Dodge Dart for being an unremarkable piece of crap, but let's face it, the Dodge Dart of the past was an unremarkable piece of crap, too. Yeah, yeah... forget the GTS or factory Hemi racer... the average Dodge Dart in "the good old days" was a base-model four-door with a slant six that left spent more than it's fair share of time on the shoulder with the hood open. If anything, the modern Dart is a better car than the early Darts based on build quality and content, but for whatever reason, there's more enthusiasm the classics, even though they were disposable family fare in their own time.

But, on to my main point.

In the case of model car kits, they (the model kit manufacturers) most certainly don't make them like they used to. And for that, I think we ought to be pretty damned grateful.

Yes, modern kits are not without their flaws. Countless new releases suffer from weird proportional issues with the body, odd choices in content and optional equipment, and some downright head-scratching parts-breakdown protocols. It seems that many kit manufacturers still don't understand nominal wheel size, and we still get a "15 inch wheel" that scales out to... exactly 15 inches, when it should be closer to 16 in overall diameter. We could go on and on into the small hours over things like that, but I digress.

Early kits, and by early I mean anything dating to before the "second golden age" of the late '80's, usually got the basic body shapes right. But there most certainly was a trade-off in other areas. I'll go with a few examples.

The AMT Ford Couriers are a good example of the kinds of iffy fit that plagued those earlier kits. It's not an unbuildable mess, and yes, this particular example has been modified from box-stock, but even so, if this exact kit were issued as an all-new tool in 2017, it would likely cause bit of an uproar as far as the actual build process goes.

The kit is reasonably well detailed by 1977 standards, and even stacks up pretty well four decades later. And it most definitely replicates the real pickup faithfully. But parts fit? Well, if you enjoy the "shake and bake" kind of build process, this kit is not for you.

The bed and cab don't quite want to line up without a little testing and trimming- if you look closely at this one you can see that it still isn't perfect. The hood is not only a tad too narrow for the opening, but it's too long- I trimmed the forward edge on this one so it wouldn't stick out over the grille. The rear cab wall is also a touch too small for it's opening, and even though it includes mounting tabs it takes a little work to get it in there straight and true. All of the major components in this kit have a means of positive location, be it a pin or tab, but sometimes they aren't quite lined up how they're supposed to be, meaning the test-fit process might be a bit much, even for a box-stock build.

Not to pick too much on this particular kit- vague parts fit is almost a given with any '70's-vintage AMT kit. By no means was AMT the only manufacturer to churn out poor-fitting kits in this period, but man, did they ever elevate it to an art form! I could go on all day about the Super Stones F-Series kit and all it's related predecessors and spin-offs...

One quality-control issue with these kits. If you find one, it will probably be "short-shot" in the lower driver's side corner of the windshield opening. What that means is that the mold did not fill completely with plastic, so that corner of the windshield opening is not fully formed. This particular one didn't suffer from that defect, but I've had roughly a half-dozen of these kits at some point or another in the old Madhouse Miniatures warehouse, and all but two of them had the defect. It can be fixed with a bit of filler, but still something to watch out for.

All that being said, it's a nice kit once you look past it's fit issues, just expect a little more time to be spent on test-fitting than you might think you're in for with such a relatively simple kit.

Parts fit issues will be a recurring theme here, but this next kit brings a few more "old-school" faults to the table.

Speaking of simplification... yes, there are some fantastic curbside kits out there these days. The Japanese manufactureres in particular are quite adept at doing more with less in that regard. But some of those earlier examples... well... yeah...

JoHan's '59 Rambler wagon dates back to 1959, when it was first released as a dealer promo. The 2003 reissue is, as far as I know, the only model kit with a disclaimer regarding it's quality printed on the bottom of the box. From that passage...

"... there is no engine, the chassis has zero detail, the interior is a shallow tub, and parts fit is not up to current standards."

So... bonus points to JoHan for honesty, at least. But there was a time when the majority of American automotive kits were just like this... low-double-digit parts count, and crude, cursory detail.

Again, the example shown is nowhere near box-stock. But the main components, even though there are few, put up a bit of a fight going together. Some of this is just the age of the tooling (another story for another time), but indeed, many parts on kits of this vintage just plain never, ever fit together with anything remotely approaching "precision" in the first place. Once again, we aren't talking about an unbuildable mess here, but parts fit isn't great, especially when you consider the low overall parts count.

Back to parts count- imagine if a kit manufacturer put ot a kit THIS simplified today. Well, there are the Revell Build-And-Play kits, but they're much better engineered and fit together better than a JoHan Rambler ever could. And they should- almost six decades of advances in technology would ensure that. But this wasn't a "beginner's kit". In the early days, material like this was all scale model car builders had to work with. AMT released a series of unassembled promos in the '60's dubbed the Craftsman Series, and while these had better parts fit, they still lacked engine detail.

It gets even crazier with the Monogram '39 Chevy Sedan Delivery, whose origins date back to the late '70's. In this case, parts fit isn't the issue. The kit goes together pretty nicely and parts interface the way you'd expect. Other than the rear door hinges, which can be a tad fiddly due to their size. But here's the thing... they went to the trouble of giving you a rear door that opens, but no interior detail to show off! Why do that? There's nothing back there but a platform, two jump seats you can add, but that's it. There's no inside door panel detail. At all. The body shell just plops onto the floor piece. No attempt at all is made to replicate inner handles, window cranks, or anything. Yes, Monogram kits were never known for being fully detailed, but that's a pretty big gaffe. Though it's not as bad as Hasegawa's VW bus kit... in that case, the lack of interior side panel detail is GLARING, when you consider all those windows that give you a nice, clear view of the interior!

Imagine a new-for-2018 model kit being introduced with no interior side panel detail. Modelers would be out for blood.

Oh, and those '60's vintage Trophy Series kits from AMT that you (and I) love so much? Many of those are flawed as well. The '40 Tudor has optional parts to allow you to build it as a '39. Sort of. I could do an entire article on the little differences between the '39 and '40 Ford cars, but let's focus on one visible aspect. While AMT provides you with the appropriate '39 DeLuxe style headlights, grille, hood, and tail lights, the wipers are molded to the bottom of the cowl. So if you wanted to build a box-stock '39 for a contest you'd be screwed, because the '39 wipers mounted above the windshield, and here they're molded in place. On a modern kit (like Revell's excellent 1940 Ford kits) the wipers would be separate anyway, which not only looks better, but would make such a conversion easier. Separate wipers, handles, and such always look better to a component molded to the body, and we're at a point where most (if not all) modern releases have such items molded separately, usually if they were a chromed part on the actual vehicle.

And going back to "shady inner door panel detail", don't you love the half-heartedly engraved details on the inside of the '53 Ford F-100 cab? That would fly like a lead zeppelin in today's model car market.

And it goes without saying that those Trophy Series kits were simplified, even compared to the late '70's "annual" stuff like the Courier. A modern kit's engine may contain more parts than the entire chassis from one of these golden oldies. And do I even need to mention the old "metal wire through the engine block" way of attaching the wheels? And don't point out the recent Revell kits that were based on pre-painted and ex-die cast tools, or originally intended to be one or the other... they're more of a strange side bar than any sign of a new trend. And even then, those kits have a reasonable amount of detail and fit together nicely. The 5.0 Coyote engine in the 2014 Mustang GT is particularly nice- axle hole or not.

It is true that iffy parts fit, low parts count, and questionable design choices aren't completely gone from model kit design. But overall, I'd say we're in far better shape than we were in either of the hobby's two golden ages ('60's and '80's, by most accounts). And I could probably think of a few areas in which the old kits were superior, though that's a story for another time. But when people talk about the golden age of the model car hobby, I like to think that we're living in them right now as far as overall quality goes.